


and then silence

by Rasiaa



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, will probably be edited later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29809575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rasiaa/pseuds/Rasiaa
Summary: He didn't want to face the sight of Flynn's captain sigil on the edge of the parchment, a threattoFlynn's life or a threatfromFlynn, so he put it out of sight, in the back of his mind. He didn't want to think on the ramifications of either scenario, that Flynn could get hurt or that he'd been so blindsided by love that he was fooled completely into a sense of false security.
Relationships: Flynn Fairwind/Mathias Shaw
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	and then silence

**Author's Note:**

> Glad I've finally finished this one. It's an angsty one, be warned.  
> Also, was mostly written before SL, so some things might not line up with canon now.

"Oh, I know, it's so easy for you--one blink of trouble and you literally vanish into thin air--"

"--don't care about anything, do you? Everything's a game, everything's a joke, and drink only makes it funnier--Light knows you drink too much--"

"Too much, huh? Who's really too much, here? I can't even get through to you half the time; I shouldn't have to fight every time I want to talk--"

"You think this is a problem about talking? Let's get serious, here--you talk enough for the both of us and you're never short of the truth, so let's hear it--"

"Fine, then: I've had enough. I'm tired of the secrets and the lies, and I'm tired of being kept in the dark all the time--"

"You knew what my job was when you agreed to this relationship--"

"Your job has nothing to do with it; don't put words in my mouth! I'm talking about the simple things, like even what you dream of or how your day went--I know you well enough to know when you're lying to me--"

"Why do those things matter?!"

"That's what a relationship is--! It's actually sharing your life with the one you're supposed to love--"

"You know that I love you--"

"No, I don't think I do. You have a really shitty way of showing it, mate. I'm done."

"Fine, then. If you think you know so much--"

"Oh, fuck you. Seriously. I don't know what's gotten into you, but I don't like it; this is not what I signed up for. I'm going home."

"...home?"

The answer was the slam of the door, and then silence.

...

 _Foolish_ is not a word normally associated with Mathias Shaw. _Stupid_ or _weak_ aren't either.

But by the Light, he feels like all of that today.

It's been three weeks.

He hasn't heard from Flynn. It's not the first time he's stormed out lately, but it's the first time he's gone more than two days without coming home.

A ship left for Boralus last week, and Mathias knows it was Flynn's. Mathias had come home the night before it left to find all of Flynn's belongings gone.

He feels sick with worry and regret. He knows full well that Flynn had every reason to go, but it doesn't make it hurt any less or make this any better to endure.

_I'm going home._

Boralus hasn't been _home_ for Flynn in a year. Mathias isn't even sure if Flynn has something to go back to. He doesn't know if Flynn kept paying the rent for his small apartment on the edge of the city. There had always been the promise that they would go to Boralus eventually--keeping Flynn from the sea would be like cutting the wings off a bird--but they hadn't gotten to it. Still, the idea had been there and maybe Flynn kept the apartment with that in mind. Maybe he didn't.

If he didn't--

Well, if he didn't, Mathias hates to think that Flynn would prefer the cold, rainy autumn nights of Boralus over staying in the warmth that Stormwind--and by extension Mathias himself--has to offer. Without shelter from the rain, Flynn could be victim to robbery and fights, or any number of unspeakable acts that Jaina Proudmoore had been unable to purge from her country.

These are the thoughts that haunt him at night, logical arguments--there are inns, Flynn has friends to turn to, he's fully trained and equipped to handle himself--be damned.

He sits up in bed and runs his hands over his face. He looks briefly to his right, where Flynn should be but isn't, then to the window on his left. The sky is clear and the moon half-full, and everything else is dark and quiet. Old Town never gets the foot traffic the Trade District and Mage Quarter do. Usually he's fine with that; he prefers it, but right now he'd give anything for something to fill the silence threatening to consume him.

The cold strikes through the window and he feels more alone than ever.

How foolish; in his desperation to hold onto the only good thing to ever happen to him, he destroyed it.

...

Flynn had learned early on that Mathias easily got cold at night, even during the summer. He was never far from Flynn at night, most of the time tucked into his embrace.

Sleeping alone when Mathias is on a mission or when he's on his ship is very different to sleeping alone when he has no idea if he'll ever see the man again, and this time it's his own fault. There's no contract for him to be at sea. There is no mission threatening Mathias's life now--though there will be soon, no doubt, and the thought of not knowing a vague idea of where or when is so much worse than the worry he held whenever the man was gone somewhere.

Mathias could be gone tomorrow, and unless he asked the king, he'd never know it. He forfeited the right to that information.

_Everything's a game; everything's a joke._

Truer words have never been so viciously spat in his face, and it makes him wonder if he'd missed all the signs of care and affection and trust from Mathias in his determination to make light of things he wasn't comfortable with. Mathias was always the one to feel things more deeply between the two of them.

And to think Flynn had ever questioned it. He feels every inch the fool most people believe he is.

_"Why are you with him? He doesn't seem like a good match."_

_"What I share with Flynn is none of your concern."_

_"Forgive me. He's just very loud, isn't he?"_

_"He has his flaws like everyone else, but I don't think that's one of them."_

Mathias was the first to ever say that. At the time it convinced Flynn that he made the right choice, and two weeks ago it made him wonder if Mathias lied to everyone about everything, and now he's just kicking himself for walking out on the only one who's ever loved him for everything he is.

It's true that Mathias closed himself off toward the end, but it's Flynn's fault for not pressing the issue. He never said anything, just let it happen because it was too much to deal with. He never tried to find out why. Something was so clearly wrong.

And now he's in his dusty old apartment in Boralus, staring down at the third bottle he's had of whiskey since dawn. Night has fallen and he forgot just how loud the nightlife is in this part of Boralus. Old Town got him used to silence, trained him to believe every noise could be a threat. Here, people don't give a damn about these apartments. No one of value lives here. There isn't anyone coming for him.

He sighs and wants to go to sleep, but the mattress is harder than he remembers and too musty besides. He can hear the wind slicing through the broken cracks in his windows, and the cold bites to his bones. There aren't enough blankets and he can't believe he actually got so used to Stormwind's mild weather that he can no longer stand the harshness of his homeland.

 _It wouldn't be so bad if Mathias were here_ , his mind provides, entirely unhelpful and unwanted.

The next boat to Stormwind isn't for three weeks. He doesn't know where his crew is at the moment, though he plans to find them soon, so that rules out taking _his_ ship back to Stormwind himself, too. In his anger, he'd given them all time off. He regrets that now--it bars him from Mathias very effectively.

Mages are so very expensive, even if they were easy to find these days. Most of them tend now to the problems created by the tear of the Shadowlands.

He takes another drink of whiskey and lays back, staring at the ceiling from his place on the floor. He keeps the bottle close to his chest and his brain takes in no information of his surroundings.

Stupid. Mathias would scold him if he were here. But he's not. 

It's dangerous.

He doesn't care.

...

Mathias hasn't done this in ages.

He's been faithful to Flynn since the first time they slept together. He believes in loyalty and monogamy, after all, but since Flynn is gone he might as well move on.

He doesn't bother to learn the man's name, and in turn the man never asks for his. They don't kiss. It's just a quick hand job outside of the Trade District, and the thrill of being caught is just as arousing as the fact that the man looks a lot like Flynn in the dark.

After, the man leans against the wall and says, "Word has it The Uncrowned is moving again in Northrend. I think they want to investigate Icecrown a bit more closely. On another note, the Horde champions are gathering around Blightcaller's old house. Dunno why."

"Thank you," Mathias says quietly as he redresses. "Dismissed."

"Oh, you think you're someone important, do ya?" The man sneers. "I'll take that order, but don't expect me to do it again."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

The man leaves in a huff, and that works just fine for Mathias. He leans against the wall and tries to focus on the information he was just told. His agents in the Uncrowned hadn't mentioned movement, so he'll have to look at that with a closer eye. And what was at Blightcaller's house? Blightcaller is already dead, Tyrande saw to that. If it's just the Horde, that would mean they have violated the already precarious treaty, or that their champions have gone rogue. Unfortunate either way, but on the plus side he'd be able to get his knives dirty. He hasn't been on the field in too long.

Part of it was a consideration to his aching knees, but most of it was for Flynn's benefit. Neither of those matter anymore.

He pushes off the wall and heads home with his head down to avoid detection. He scans his surroundings from under his lashes, but there's nothing to warrant alarm. Everyone out tonight is laughing with friends or lovers or both, drunk and young and alive. Part of him burns with envy, but he can dismiss this easily enough. The life he's lead has never allowed for such frivolities. No point ruminating.

He reaches the SI:7 base and at first moves to pass it by, then he stops and changes direction.

The training dummies haven't been beaten up enough yet. They're still new, having replaced the old ones, and so they're mostly free of gouges and poison burns. Like everything else lately, there's no point in letting that continue.

The guards ignore him--well, they appear to, he's trained them that way--so he gets into the compound and shadow steps behind the training dummy to immediately shove his dagger through the location of a target's heart.

He follows it up with a series of cuts and jabs, and eventually starts moving between two of the dummies to help him move faster. He's not out of shape by any means but somehow this seems harder than it should be.

It takes him too long to realize that his mind is slower than normal, too, and that's when the black spots start appearing. He finally connects the dots when he sees a small dart in his knee. When it got there, he's not sure. It doesn't really matter because he loses all sense of time and space, and the last thing he hears is the shout of his name.

...

Taelia has been more than a little messed up ever since she learned of her father's fate.

The devastation on her face will haunt Flynn for the rest of his life, and the regret on the face of the death knight that let it slip is also burned into his memory. The king had been furious, or so he heard from Mathias, which apparently had been quite a spectacle. King Anduin has a reputation following his temper; namely, that it's rare enough to almost be legend. It hasn't been a _legend_ ever since.

She's spent quite a bit of time with him ever since he came back to Boralus, and they've made great use of that time bar hopping every night. She uncharacteristically hasn't questioned why he came back alone, or why he came back at all. He supposes she's just glad to have her best friend home, and misery loves company, so the saying goes.

Taelia is a quiet drunk. She watches passively, mindlessly, as he drags partner after partner up the stairs every night as they hit their last bar, and sometimes as he grabs one or two between bars to hide in back alleys, or just anywhere moonlight is not.

She doesn't stop him, in fact no one does. No one says a thing. No one calls him out on it. He's just another whore looking for an escape, which is common in the dark parts of this old city. No one cares. No one gives a damn about whether or not he's in love or if he has someone waiting or if he just needs release. It's all the same to everyone here; they come to these seedy places knowing they'll fuck someone by the end of the night.

Even Taelia herself--he watched one night last week as she took a young woman around the corner and the next night as she flirted with a man wearing gold. She returned the next morning with all the gold he'd had, and Flynn was impressed for as long as it took him to realize that she'd fallen farther than he thought, if she's resorted to behavior like that.

So one night he takes Taelia to his place and leaves her there, then turns up the lapels of his coat against the wind and heads to Tradewinds Market, a place he's avoided as much as possible.

There is very little foot traffic at this time of the morning, but he knows that won't be the case for long. Shops are due to open in about a half hour as the sun will come over the mountains.

It's not the shops he's interested in. In fact he just doesn't care about that at all.

It seems like Cyrus has been waiting.

Flynn introduces himself to the guards and they exchange a look before just nodding for him to enter the Harbormaster's office. Seeing as he's been gone for some time and those guards are new, it doesn't bode well that they know his name. He's more well known than he was, but not necessarily to his countrymen, just to those of importance within the Alliance.

Cyrus looks up from his desk when Flynn knocks on the doorway. "Flynn Fairwind," he says, and he's not surprised. "Come in."

Flynn stands before Cyrus's desk and pointedly thinks-- _he has no sway over me since I don't live here anymore_ \--and then he stops that thought because, oh yeah, he does live here now. He wishes he was drunker than he is, but he made sure he didn't drink so heavily last night in preparation for this conversation. He swallows. "Cyrus."

"Finally decided to drop by, have you?" the man says. "I've heard all about your misadventures with my ward. I thought you lived in Stormwind. I haven't seen Master Shaw around, so therefore you came alone. Did you come to see Taelia? If you have, you've done a terrible job at comforting her. Or have you come for another reason?"

He hadn't realized he'd fallen so far out of favor with Cyrus, but if he's heard about Flynn and Taelia's drunken escapades, he supposes it makes sense. He's not exactly a good influence.

He's not sure how much he wants to tell Cyrus about his own situation. He came here to help Taelia, not complain about Mathias. Still, it wasn't like he'd moved back to Boralus for Taelia.

"Shaw and I are no longer together, so I've come back. I am here this morning for Taelia, though--I hadn't seen how bad it was, really. Not until she started stealing. It... woke me up, so to speak. She needs help--"

"Just her? I don't believe this behavior started until you got here."

Flynn falters and just stops talking. He swallows again, nervously, not sure what to say. He only just stops himself from shuffling on his feet like he was a boy again. He doesn't know what Cyrus is getting at, though he can guess--why Cyrus cares is another matter. Flynn's relationship with the man has always been a business transaction--Cyrus pays him handsomely for some dirty work to get done without sullying Cyrus's name, and Flynn does the job, takes the gold, and gets absolutely wasted until he gets another job. It's a system they've had in place for nearly a decade.

Cyrus eyes him for another moment. Then he says, "I'm not your father, and I'm not about to give you a lecture on your behavior. Nor am I going to force you to say something. Still, I can see you need help as much as she does." Flynn says nothing, so he continues. "Now, tell me about Taelia. She's not hurt, is she? You said she was stealing, and I've heard that she's drunk more often than you are these days. What are your thoughts?"

Relieved, Flynn starts retelling some of the more worrying things--the theft in more detail, the fights she's gotten into, some of the things she's told entire bar rooms that are frighteningly dark. He doesn't say things she's told him in confidence, nor of the things she's said while sober. He picks and chooses his words carefully.

Cyrus probably knows this, but he doesn't push.

They spend the day talking, trying to figure out a way to stop this spiral.

Flynn tries to ignore something Cyrus said-- _I don't believe this behavior started until you got here._

_Until you got here._

He's fucking up pretty spectacularly lately, isn't he?

...

Mathias wakes up in his own home, and he's alone.

He wastes half a second wishing he hadn't woken up at all, and then dismisses it. It's not productive, and now he has to figure out who tried to assassinate him on top of everything else he's been dealing with.

Though, his home base is a pretty poor place for an assassination attempt, especially while there were countless guards around. Or maybe it was a perfect time, considering his exhaustion and distraction.

Until he gets more detail, he can't accurately get into the assassin's head. He doesn't know who they were, who they worked for, if anyone at all. He doesn't know the motive, and he doesn't know how long it had been since the dart had made it into his skin, nor how he failed to notice it. The only thing he can think of was his contact last night. Was it last night? Or has it been longer?

He sighs and then tenses when he hears someone move in the other room. He sits up and reaches for a dagger on the bedside table.

His bedroom door opens and Mathias relaxes. Henriette is a priest he's worked with before. The treasury heist flashes in his mind, the way she'd disabled the traps and he uncharacteristically paid her no mind, captivated by someone else. He dismisses the thoughts, irritated. She smiles at him briefly and the Light sparks on her fingertips. "Shaw. Good to see you're up," she says. "Anything hurt?"

"No," he answers, mentally going over everything. "How long was I out?"

"Only a few hours. I was nearby, heading to the portal to Uldum--but that's beside the point. If nothing hurts you should be fine; it was only a sedative, not poison."

"Well, that's something, I suppose." He eyes her as she gathers her healing supplies, stuffing it into her bag with abandon. It's not reassuring, but she knows what she's doing. Hopefully. "Anyone have any idea where that dart came from?" he asks, and she shrugs.

"Don't ask me. That's not my job, Spymaster. I don't know shit. I wasn't there to see you go down, anyway. They saw me flying over and hailed me down since I was the fastest option." She grabs her staff and bows shortly. "If that'll be all. Once I figured out you were only asleep, I let your people know and they're waiting for you. Like I said, you'll be fine."

"Thank you, Priestess."

She opens a void portal and steps through it. It closes behind her and the temperature in his room plummets. He shivers and wishes he'd known what the hell was going through Anduin's mind when he allowed the void elves into the Alliance. They're loyal and incredibly effective, but...

The void. Really?

Shaking his head to clear it, he stands and is pleasantly surprised to find that he can hold his balance without a problem. He gets his armor on and focuses on the straps and laces way too hard, not because he needs to, but because he hasn't seen much of Henriette in ages, not since the Fourth War ended. She's been traveling across worlds, these days, and he's been here. With Flynn. No doubt she noticed he's gone.

It's a small blessing that she's always been the type to mind her own business.

He pulls on his boots and grabs his daggers. He makes a point to ignore the way the light catches on the blade, and on the engraving: _Keep safe--I love you. Flynn._

It's a little after noon, judging by the sun. He squints against it and then lowers his gaze to Old Town itself; it's not any busier or any emptier than normal. He sees his neighbors, people who have lived here as long as he has, or longer. They bustle around and chat and smile and wave and the fact that they _can_ \--it's more salt in a wound. It's been an eternity since he could be that happy, that free. 

He turns away and sticks to the shadows, slipping around people without them being any the wiser.

Renzik is waiting in his office when Mathias gets there, running a cleaning cloth over his dagger with his feet up on the desk. "Hey, boss," he says casually. "Tracked down the idiot with a blow dart."

Efficient as always. "And?" Mathias checks, closing the door behind him.

"His name is Rick. He said you fucked him last night," Renzik answers. "And then dismissed him like some dog. He wanted to find out 'who the fuck he thinks he is.'" Renzik puts the dagger down and picks up another. "Slow acting sedative. We're trying to figure out where he got it. I can guess, though."

With that, Renzik tosses a cloth at him. Mathias catches it easily and Renzik goes back to cleaning the blade. Mathias turns the cloth over in his hands, wishing he didn't recognize it.

Vanessa VanCleef. Of course she's on the move again. Sourly, Mathias figures this is the movement the man told him about--Vanessa is technically a member of the Uncrowned, though not a high ranking one. What she wants in Icecrown is a mystery he intends to solve. He needs to check with Jorach Ravenholdt to see if he'd authorized her action, or if she's moving alone.

In the meantime, he tears the red bandana in half and throws it onto the desk. Renzik doesn't look up.

"You found that on him, I suppose?" Mathias asks. He needs to be sure.

"In his bags, alongside the darts and a few other meaningless items. The sedatives are the most threatening."

"No notes?"

"A grocery list. We haven't found any indication that there's a cipher needed. Regular parchment, regular ink. Shitty handwriting."

"Okay. Anything else?"

"Nada. We'll let you know."

"Thank you, Renzik. Dismissed."

"Aye, aye, boss." Renzik gets off the chair and sheaths his knives. He walks to the door but pauses in the doorway. Mathias raises his eyebrows in question, but Renzik says nothing, taking his leave after looking around the room once more.

Mathias sighs and moves to the window. He stares through the glass but sees nothing, weight settling over his heart and mind.

...

"It's more than that, Flynn."

So he stops talking. 

They're at his apartment, in the little area that serves as a kitchen. It's dark and storming outside, the kind of storm that he used to see in Stormwind in the summer. Only it's cold rain, here, not the hot rain they got there. Such a small difference to remind him of his mistake.

Taelia stares at him, a bottle of whiskey in hand. Her face is carefully blank, but there's a dull shine to her eyes that tells of a deeper sadness. She holds his gaze for an endless moment and then looks to the wall behind him. She swirls the whiskey around in the bottle and says, "I was a child, so I know why they did it. I don't like it, but I know why. Children don't need to know the ins and outs of having the bloody _Lich King_ for a father. So I can't blame them for that too much.

"But Flynn, all of _this_ \--" she says, lifting the bottle and waving her arm around briefly to encompass the situation, "--this... it's too much. We've still got a planet torn into pieces from a sword more massive than a continent, and now, thanks to my father's loss to Windrunner, we're sending soldiers to the Afterlife while they're _still alive_. So why not steal and get wasted and have sex with strangers? Hell, you did that before we had these problems. You're still doing it now."

Okay, ouch. Not a lie, but it's not a truth he'd like to be reminded of.

_Everything's a game, everything's a joke._

Mathias's words come back to him, and he tries not to wince at the memory. Taelia's eyes are sharp even through the alcohol, however, and she frowns at him. "What is it, Flynn?"

"It's nothing," he dismisses. He tries not to picture Mathias's face during their last meeting, how broken he was, how angry. How much it hurt to leave, and how much it hurts now to stay away.

Taelia keeps frowning. "No, it's something. I didn't want to ask because I was selfish. I wanted you here to excuse my behavior. But something's wrong; something's _been_ wrong. What is it?"

Flynn shakes his head. He doesn't want to talk about this. "Let it go, Tae, please. Please."

"It's about Shaw, isn't it? I can't believe I didn't see it before. Why else would you be _here_ , and not in Stormwind?"

"Taelia, _please_. I don't want to talk about it," he begs.

She sighs. "Taelia, now, huh? I hit the nerve, then. Fine. Don't talk. But I'm here if you need me, you know that."

"I know, Tae. Just... not now."

She gives him one last suspicious glance and then closes her eyes. She sinks further into her chair. "I just wish this would all be over," she mutters. "I just want peace. We've not had it since Daelin Proudmoore died at Theramore."

Flynn hums and stares out the window. He follows a raindrop as it travels on the window pane, eventually merging with another, and another. It disappears into the windowsill. "Cyrus and I were talking--" he starts.

"Oh, by the Tidemother," Taelia hisses resentfully. "What?"

"We just want to help, Tae," he says. "You're worrying us."

She opens her eyes to stare at him again. "You just want me to put up with all this, do you? Just lie down and take it."

"No--Tides, Tae, we just want you to feel better. No one's saying you have to like what's going on. We were just thinking that maybe a break would do you good. You know, get away from all this and find something new to see."

"So I'm fired from my position in the guard, am I?"

"Taelia," Flynn says, fed up. "Cyrus and I just think you could use a break. Not forever. Just leave. We could go somewhere. I've got two ships to my name. Pick one, somewhere--"

"Stormwind," Taelia says. "Take me to Stormwind."

Flynn falters. "I really don't think--"

"You want me to pick somewhere to go, to see something new? Well, I've not been to Stormwind in a long time. Both your ships are docked here at the harbor and I know you found a crew ready to leave whenever last week. You want me out of this? That's what I want in return."

He swears under his breath. "Dammit, Tae. You know I don't want to go to Stormwind."

"Why not?"

Helplessly, he admits, "Mathias lives there. I don't want to run into him."

"Why not, Flynn? You love him, don't you?"

" _Of course_ I love him. It's just--we left on a bad note. I just--"

"You were so happy. I've never seen you so happy as you were when you were with him. He was good for you. Isn't that worth fighting for?"

But Flynn just shakes his head. "The things I said to him, Taelia. He didn't follow me. He might not want to fight for it--for _us_. What will I do then?"

Taelia takes a drink of the whiskey and puts the bottle on the table. She picks at the bottle's label. "I don't know. But if you don't ask, the answer's always no. No, you can't fight; no, you can't get him back; no, he doesn't want you anymore. But you haven't asked, so the answer could be yes; you just don't know it."

And really, what can he say to that? She's right, of course she's right. Taelia usually is; if it weren't so useful it'd be downright obnoxious. Even drunk she's better at dealing with his disasters than he is.

He sends her a smile, fleeting and hopeless. "How do you always manage to make me talk about things I don't wanna talk about?"

"It's a gift. All women have it," she says flippantly. He scoffs but she just grins at him impishly. She sobers after a second. "So will you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Take me to Stormwind. I really do want to go." She even bats her eyelashes at him, which she never would've done had she not ingested over half a bottle of whiskey, and that he absolutely will be teasing her about for the next decade, at least. It makes him smile genuinely for the first time in ages.

"Oh, fine, but I'm not giving you a tour. I'm staying on the ship the entire time."

"That's ridiculous."

"It's called self-preservation."

"It's called general stupidity."

"Hey!"

"Don't pretend you don't agree with me. It's stupid. That city is huge. You've told me before he stays locked up in his office most of the time, or he's on a training field. Avoid the office, the training field, and the Keep for safety, and you've still got several districts to go through."

"Knowing my luck he'll decide to venture for fresh air and I'll run right into him."

"Yeah, that would be your luck, wouldn't it?"

"Exactly."

"So you'll give me a tour, then. Excellent."

" _Taelia._ "

...

Princess Tess Greymane has finally returned from Darkshore. Her timing couldn't be better.

"You want me to what?"

Mathias sighs. "Keep a close eye on VanCleef. She's up to something. I don't know yet if Jorach authorized it; I'm going to Dalaran this afternoon to find out."

She frowns at him. "Vanessa is in good standing with the Uncrowned. She wouldn't jeopardize that."

"I got attacked by a member of the Defias. I don't know if he was rogue or not."

"You were _attacked_?" she hisses, looking around. They're alone in the gardens of the Keep, the closest guards several yards away and unlikely to hear. He appreciates her discretion nevertheless.

"Yes. It was just a sedative dart, however."

Her eyes narrow. "Now that's odd. If they actually got you why not use poison?"

"Good question. He claimed he just wanted my identity, but his status in the Brotherhood would make him know it since they hate me so much."

"Why do they hate you, exactly? No one seems to know."

 _Because I was Edwin VanCleef's lover. And I betrayed them._ "I got Vanessa's father killed."

"For the good of the Alliance?"

"Of course."

Princess Greymane just shrugs, then. "Oh well." She takes another glance around and then faces him again, snapping into a salute. "I'll try to find Vanessa. There's got to be an explanation. See you around, Shaw."

"Thank you again, Your Highness."

"Anything for the Uncrowned and the betterment of the Alliance."

With that, she takes her leave, slipping into the shadows of the trees. Mathias loses track of her quickly, so he turns around and goes in the opposite direction. He has to double back around in order to slip into an alley leading from the Keep into the canals just outside Old Town. He takes back alleys and shortcuts to the Mage Quarter, unwilling to even make eye contact with anyone.

It's getting to be too much.

He climbs the Mage Tower ramp slowly, weaving in between adventurers and commoners alike. No one spares him a second glance.

Stepping into the portal room is a trial, as always. Far too many people for his tastes. Too much room for lethal mistakes. Regardless, he steps into the short line to Dalaran, and steps through the portal within a couple of minutes.

No matter how much experience he has with portals, they never get any more pleasant to use.

Shaking off the residual disorientation, he heads into the Glorious Goods shop, checking that no one follows. It's a quiet place, but has enough traffic to conceal clandestine workings. He walks up to the counter and slides his sigil across the wood, "Red" Jack taking a distant glance at it. "Come with me, I have your order back here," he says casually.

Mathias follows him into the back room and nods at him when he pulls open the secret door behind the shelves. He steps inside the hallway, hearing the door close behind him, and makes his way downstairs.

There's a fight going on in the front room. He watches for a moment, but ultimately, he cares little for whatever squabble a blood elf has with an orc. Down the corridor leading to the vaults, there's plenty of black market dealings, all of which he ignores. He ignores the pirates speaking with accents from the Cape of Stranglethorn, and the goblins who are arguing with the gnomes.

Some things never change.

Jorach Ravenholdt is alone save for the bard in the meeting room. He's making notes on paperwork, cross checking a map for reference. He glances up when Mathias walks in, then, once he registers who he's looking at, puts his quill down. "Master Shaw," he says, surprised.

"Jorach," he greets in return, and pulls out a chair without invitation. He's known Jorach long enough to not care for such politics.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Jorach asks dryly, snapping his fingers. A young trainee hurries over. "Wine?"

"No, thank you. I won't be long, hopefully. I just have a couple of questions for you."

"Ask away, Mathias."

"Have you sent agents to Northrend?"

Jorach pauses his movement to lift his glass to his lips. He puts it back down. "Volunteers only. I've only got a half a dozen agents out there right now."

"Is VanCleef one of them?"

The Shadow's eyes narrow. "No, she wasn't. Why?"

Mathias reaches into his pocket and tosses the Defias mask onto the table. Jorach picks it up with a frown. "Found that on my attacker the other day," Mathias says. "Defias, but I'm sure you guessed that. He told me the Uncrowned was moving in Northrend. Finding that on him wasn't a coincidence."

"No, it likely is not," Jorach agrees. "I have agents up there, as I said, but they're haven't been found by anyone. That agent who attacked you must've been lying to you to distract you, or he genuinely believed Vanessa was there."

"He also told me the Horde was gathering around Blightcaller's house. Do you know if that's connected?"

"That's a lie," Jorach says with certainty. "I have a spy nearby in case we get word of Windrunner around there. No one has been there in months."

"Pity. I would've liked to stab something."

"You and me both," the other man says sardonically. He turns the mask in his hands. "I haven't seen Vanessa in weeks, now that I think about it. I originally thought our newest Shadow would've been sending her on missions, but in light of this, maybe not. I thought she was over her vendetta towards you."

"Do you remember Edwin? The man held grudges until the day he died, some of them having lasted for more than twenty years," Mathias points out, and Jorach laughs softly.

"Yes, that's true. He didn't like me much. What was the issue again?"

"You were flirting with me."

"Ah, yes. He was awfully possessive."

Mathias grimaces. "Let's make sure that never gets back to his daughter, shall we? I'd rather not give her another reason to hate me. Her grudge is bad enough now."

"Probably for the best," Jorach agrees. "The last thing your pretty kingdom needs is an attack."

"Don't threaten, Jorach," Mathias warns. Jorach waves him off.

"I have enough work going on. Attacking Stormwind is not in my best interest."

"Good."

"Well, I'll send an agent to Westfall and see if we can't find Vanessa."

"No need," Mathias says. "I'll do it myself."

Jorach looks at him, frowning. "Don't you have someone waiting on you?"

"Not anymore," Mathias says, pointedly pushing down any emotion in his voice.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was my own fault. Lesson learned," Mathias says. He wants this part of the conversation to be over. He doesn't want to talk about Flynn.

Light, does he not want to think about Flynn right now. What would he say, knowing Mathias's life is being threatened by an old enemy? Would he even care anymore? He was the one to leave, after all. He's the one who gave up.

That train of thought leads nowhere good, so he attempts to put it out of mind. Still however, it lingers like a poison, taunting him.

Jorach is still frowning as he hands over the Defias mask. Mathias pockets it. "If you need assistance finding Vanessa, send word. She's one of my operatives. I'd like to see her return. I'll poke around some other areas, other haunts of hers that she's acquired away from the Brotherhood. If I find her, I'll call for you."

"Thank you," Mathias says, and stands. Jorach raises his glass in a toast.

"Pleasure doing business, as always, Mathias."

...

Getting his ship ready to set sail for Stormwind is nerve wracking. His hands shake minutely, making him effectively useless. He can't tie knots well enough to make anything work and he can't write very well, either. Luckily he's known his first mate, Emmeline, for many years now and she just raises her eyebrows, obligatorily mocks him, and does his job.

Tides, he doesn't deserve her.

He doesn't deserve Taelia, either, who sits with him on the edge of the docks and talks him through no less than six near-panic attacks--thankfully they don't get that bad, but hyperventilating isn't fun, as he comes to learn with firsthand experience.

So when they set sail, finally, after three days of agonizing preparation, Flynn feels entirely out of depth. He can't stop thinking about the possibility that he'll meet Mathias again, and what he'll say if he does, if he says a damn thing at all. More likely, Mathias will see him, and deliberately not engage. The man's one of the best spies in the world; if he doesn't want to be found, he won't be.

If that's the case, he'll never actually know it. The _what if_ will haunt him.

It takes a little over three days to reach Stormwind. They're not going very fast.

They pull up to an empty dock early in the morning. Flynn climbs off the _Bold Arva_ and meets the dock master. The man recognizes him and allows him to claim the dock without any problems. "Haven't seen you in a while," he says. "Mission go well?"

Flynn shrugs. "Went okay," he replies, a bit awkward. The lie tastes like ash. 

"Well, welcome back, Captain."

"Thanks."

His crew takes care of docking and making sure everything is secure while Flynn guides Taelia off the ship. "Where to first, Tae?" he asks, watching her take in the city with wide eyes. He glances up at the towers and remembers how he felt when he first saw them--more than a little awed, a tad frightened, and mostly excited that he would be living in the Alliance Capitol. Mathias had smiled at him indulgently, and deliberately took the long way around to Old Town, their fingers intertwined.

After having so many people know Mathias in Boralus, it was weird to see the man go completely unnoticed in Stormwind. Mathias had pointed out that most people with him in Boralus were high ranking officials. _"Why would the commoners know me at all? I never deal with them."_

_"That's pretentious."_

_"So what?"_

It made Flynn laugh then, and he smiles slightly as he thinks about it now. Tides, he misses Mathias so much it hurts.

"I've heard a lot of stories about the tram. Can we go see that? I think someone told me once it is surrounded by a giant gear," Taelia answers, interrupting the memory.

"It is," Flynn confirms, and leads her up the endless stairs to the canals.

She runs her hand over the smooth marble railings. "How'd they get this so smooth?"

"Don't ask me. I think Mathias would know--"

He stops, choked, and she looks at him. Flynn continues, "He, uh, he knew one of the architects, I think. Not sure how. Or when. Or what happened to the guy."

"Edwin VanCleef," someone says quietly, and they jump and turn to one of the shadows at the top of the stairs. A woman steps forward, and she seems familiar somehow. Flynn narrows his eyes and wonders--

"I was talking to Shaw yesterday. VanCleef was the main architect of Stormwind twenty years ago, and he caused the murder of Queen Tiffin Wrynn in the Stormwind riots. Shaw was the one to hunt the man down and ultimately direct his agents to kill him. Word has it the two had a long, long history. No one knows how, though. Not much is known about Shaw before he became head of SI:7."

The woman jerks her head to the side; Flynn gets the hint and drags Taelia after her. "Where's Mathias now?" Flynn asks as soon as they're hidden behind some bushes and a large tree.

"Not here. Left through a portal yesterday afternoon. I've no idea where he is or when he'll be back," she says, and Flynn has been witness to the way SI:7 is trained to lie often enough now that he knows she's straight up lying to his face. There's always something to the phrasing-- _"The best way to lie is to tell most of the truth,"_ Mathias said once.

Taelia, of course, buys it completely. Flynn just frowns at her. "Who are you?" Taelia asks. "You seem familiar." Good to know he's not the only who thought so--she's been in Kul Tiras, then.

"Well, Lady Fordragon, you spent a lot of time with my father, King Genn Greymane. Perhaps the familiarity comes from that?"

"Princess Tess Greymane?" Flynn says before he can stop himself, surprised. She shoots him a wicked grin in response. "You're SI:7?"

"Absolutely not," she answers. "I wouldn't even if my father would allow it."

"So why are you talking to us, then?" Taelia asks. "Mingling with the commoners, all that."

"Ah, because I knew about Fairwind, here, and I know Mathias." The princess looks at him steadily. "He still needs you, perhaps now more than he ever has. It's getting bad again."

"What is?" Flynn demands, worried.

She just shakes her head. "That's all I can say, I'm afraid. My suggestion? Don't let him run. He'll try. Good luck, Captain."

"Wait!" he says, a little too loud, but she's already gone. The damn vanishing spell from rogues is only useful to the user. He would know, having used it himself, but he never realized how annoying that is.

His shoulders slump, and guilt comes up on him like a tidal wave. Taelia reaches out and wraps an arm around him. "It'll be alright. We can stay until he comes home, okay? You wanna go to Old Town?"

"I don't know, maybe. I don't even know what to say, Tae. I still don't know what's wrong."

"Looks like you won't know until Shaw comes back, anyway. How about a drink, then?"

"Haven't you done enough drinking lately?" he asks weakly, fully acknowledging the hypocrisy of the question. Taelia raises her eyebrows, silently calling him out on his bullshit. He just shrugs.

"Okay, fine. No drinks for now, but you owe me big time. I like whiskey, you know. They make it differently here, no doubt--"

"Yes, they do. It's not as good as it is back home."

"Really?"

"Really."

Taelia lets out a sigh of disappointment and starts walking away, down the tunnel that opens up to the canal that breaks the Cathedral Square from Lion's Rest. Taelia of course has no idea where she's going, of that Flynn is certain, but he follows her lead regardless. What else can he do?

...

Mathias makes his way back to Stormwind, uneasy. He steps foot into the portal room and feels alarmed immediately, despite the lack of discernible threats. The shaky feeling hasn't left him even as he makes his way through the city and he's more than a little sick of it.

He has to go to the SI:7 headquarters, so that's where he heads. He skips through shadows and avoids people entirely, even those he usually speaks to. The bells in the Cathedral ring in the eighth hour of the morning.

He hears Flynn before he sees him.

The guilt that rises in his throat chokes him momentarily, and he freezes where he stands. He's near the jewel crafting shop, in one of the secret tunnels Edwin had built into every inch of this city. They're really useful; he rarely tells anyone about them. Not even Anduin knows. If pressed, Mathias would reveal them, but he wants this secret to himself, selfishly.

It feels poetic that he hears the man he loves for the first time in two months while surrounded by the carved love notes from Edwin. He closes his eyes to block them out and creeps closer to the exit, straining to hear better.

"--never expected to meet her," Flynn says.

"It was strange. What need would she have to tell us all that?"

It takes a moment to place the voice, but it comes to him quickly: Taelia Fordragon.

"I don't know. I can't imagine what kind of trouble has come up now. With the king still missing and the world in pieces, the last thing we need is for Mathias have some old problem hit him."

"Definitely wouldn't be my idea of fun." There's a pause. Then Fordragon continues, "You should use this opportunity to, you know, _find_ Shaw and see if you can't get back into his good graces."

"You're incorrigible," Flynn says. "Honestly. Mathias doesn't want to see me."

_What?_

"Like I said. He never followed me when I left."

"Well, he didn't ask you to leave, did he?"

"Might as well have. Trying to get him to talk to me was like telling the sea to behave. Impossible."

Mathias stops listening, backing away, further into the tunnel.

Light, he really fucked up.

He makes his way to his office in SI:7, alert but with no memory of how he got there when he blinks into true awareness. He locks his office door and leans his hands on his desk, head bowed. He tries to breathe.

As the days dragged on, he got more and more comfortable with Flynn's place in his life. Silence has been his only defense for so long; he used it again when he realized how easily Flynn could be used as a weapon against him.

It had been a letter--

His head snaps up.

He walks around to the other side of the desk, digging his keys out of his pocket to unlock the bottom left drawer. Files greet him when he jerks it open, but he just pulls them all out in favor of the false bottom at the base of the drawer. Carefully, he lifts it up and pulls out the letter.

At first glance, it's nonsense. There's no cipher he knows that could crack it. He'd run it by his decoders and they'd been lost as well, so he buried it in the drawer.

He didn't want to face the sight of Flynn's captain sigil on the edge of the parchment, a threat _to_ Flynn's life or a threat _from_ Flynn, so he put it out of sight, in the back of his mind. He didn't want to think on the ramifications of either scenario, that Flynn could get hurt or that he'd been so blindsided by love that he was fooled completely into a sense of false security.

He doesn't believe, even now, that Flynn could ever willingly hurt him like that. Sure, it hurt when he walked away, but Flynn had reason to. Reasons he has evidently explained to his closest friend, reasons she has elected to ignore. He can't decide if he's grateful for that or not.

Now, he holds the letter to the light. The parchment is thin and worn, old. As he considers it, he notices something wrong with the ink in Flynn's sigil. Frowning, he places the parchment on the desk and starts scraping at it with a dagger.

It flakes away in only a few places. His heart hurts at the image revealed: Edwin's sigil, the one he invented when they were children, too young to understand the complications of having such a mark.

But there's no way anyone alive would know it. Edwin had never told Vanessa of his past with Mathias, of that he's certain, or she would have come for him before now. He and Edwin had been children, and no one took them seriously, not really. Mathias had been a joke even to the Assassin's Guild when he was six years old. He can't imagine anyone bothering to remember anything other than his most embarrassing incidents.

He carefully scrapes the rest of the ink off the parchment, and what comes away is just pieces of the original letter, which eventually settles into something that makes sense.

_Mathias,  
Or should I even call you that, now?  
It's not like I mattered, in the end, now is it?  
I need to write this down anyway before I lose my mind.  
I'll never post this, you'll never read it.  
It is barely any consolation.  
My wife, Marissa, just passed from illness.  
Vanessa is all I have left.  
Light, I wish you were here.  
But you're not.  
You sided with the king, with the nobles we so hated.  
An unforgivable mistake.  
One day it will haunt you.  
When they prove you are nothing to them.  
When they let you down.  
When the night grow too long.  
When you realize you are as alone as I am.  
When will that be, I wonder?  
I loved you so, and I believed you felt the same.  
Was it true, or not?_

There was clearly something scratched out, and the note ends there. The rest of it is in newer, different colored ink.

_Master Shaw,  
Finally I have the truth, from my father's hand. I always knew there was something deeply wrong for my father to have been so angry with you.  
How long before we meet again?  
Hopefully never. Next I see you, be prepared for a fight you will not win.  
Consider the sigil to be a promise. Next I see you, it will not be you I fight. I know I wouldn't win. But your lover...  
Do not follow me. Arrange your meetings with the Uncrowned so I can be elsewhere.  
I will never forget this, and neither should you. Maybe one day we can face each other again, but I doubt it severely. My Defias have orders to incapacitate you should you meet them. I would not dare cross Jorach by killing you.  
Lucky you._

He sits down on the floor, numb.

He thought he'd let go of any pain Edwin might have caused, but it seems as though his mistakes and regrets will haunt him forever. The threat to Flynn's life is enough to make him see red, but he knows it's easy enough to ensure it only stays a threat.

Letting Vanessa go is easy.

He has enough to deal with.

This headache was something he could have done without. Nevertheless, he sits down and writes a brief letter to Jorach, detailing the necessity of avoiding Vanessa as much as possible. He's surprised she's willing to let him go without trying to kill him, at least, but he's grateful regardless. He includes a brief note to Vanessa, essentially saying he was willing to talk if she ever felt she could. He tells Jorach to give this to her when she's in a good mood. He hands it to an agent and sighs.

For now, he has another fight to deal with. He can't possibly let Flynn go without at least an explanation. The man thought he was at fault, and that was unacceptable. It was time Mathias owned up to it.

 _Easier said than done_ , he mused, watching the shadows move across the floor with the sun.

He counted out a minute, then stood.

If there's one place Flynn would be, it'd be the docks.

...

Flynn might be mildly drunk.

Never mind that he'd watched Taelia consume far more Dwarven beer than he did, it's the only explanation he has for what he's seeing.

"They let me onto your ship without a fuss," Mathias says quietly from his place in the chair at Flynn's desk. He's got a dagger in hand, one Flynn instantly recognizes.

_Keep safe--I love you. Flynn_

He looks away.

"I don't deserve your forgiveness, and I'm not asking for it. I just wanted to let you know I'm sorry, Flynn," Mathias continues. "I received a letter from an old enemy about three months ago, one with a direct threat to your life. It was easier to avoid you than to face it. You didn't deserve that."

Flynn meets his eyes, and of course he can't read Mathias to save his life. He's never been able to, not like he should. "And you've dealt with it?" he asks.

"Yes, as best I can," Mathias says, and stands. "You're safe. That's what matters. I'll just--"

"No, no, no. You don't get to leave," Flynn says quickly, grabbing Mathias's hand. Mathias looks at him, and, tides, this is what got Flynn into this mess in the first place. Green eyes. He's never been able to resist.

"Don't run," Flynn says. He grips Mathias's hand tighter. "Don't keep running. I won't either."

"Flynn," Mathias murmurs, eyes searching Flynn's face. Whatever he finds makes him loosen up a bit, stepping closer. "I'm so sorry for driving you away."

"I'll come back if you don't do it again," he says, and pulls Mathias into his arms. He breathes in deeply, but of course Mathias uses unaromatic soaps. As usual, he's slightly disappointed, but the weight of him is enough. Mathias wraps his arms around Flynn's waist in turn and sighs.

"Deal," he says.

**Author's Note:**

> So many italics. So much formatting ugh
> 
> Might go back and edit this later.


End file.
